Where is NFC on the AT&T Galaxy Note?

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It seems like only yesterday AT&T fans were jumping for joy at the news that the Samsung Galaxy Note would be coming to AT&T with 4G LTE superpowers to fuel it. Of the many reasons to be excited about this phone, one of the top ones could have been NFC. In fact, Samsung themselves posted a teardown as CES attendees were playing with the Note for the first time in the US that specifically included NFC.

After all of the excitement and suspense, the Galaxy Note is now just a few short days away from hitting AT&T’s shelves. Only, the AT&T version of the Galaxy Note seems to be missing the very thing that got everyone excited just a few weeks ago. The AT&T Galaxy Note does not have NFC.

During a press meeting with AT&T, the representative confirmed to us that their version of the Samsung Galaxy Note dues not support NFC. According to the teardown provided by Samsung, the battery cover has the antennae for NFC built in with a pair of copper points to connect to the phone. Looking at the AT&T Galaxy Note, that antennae and the contact points on the phone are still there. It would appear as though, just like the Samsung Galaxy S2 when launched for AT&T, the Galaxy Note has had the ability removed on a software level from the device.

At this time, AT&T has refused to comment on why they have repeatedly disabled NFC on their devices. As this news comes right on the heels of the AT&T version of the Nexus S being able to access Google Wallet, the lack of comment is confusing at best. Over two years have passed since ISIS, the NFC payment platform created in partnership with AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless was created and there’s still no real product to speak of to load on these devices. When asked for comment, Samsung also declined to discuss why NFC was disabled on devices like the Galaxy Note, mentioning only that it was disabled at AT&T’s request. NXP Semiconductors was also unavailable to comment on this situation.

As of right now, AT&T has no plans to release an update that would enable NFC on the Galaxy Note, like they did for the Samsung Galaxy S2. While I am sure it is only a matter of time before the developer community finds a way to awaken the NFC chip on the AT&T Galaxy Note, very few users will take those steps to enable the hardware. There are so many things out there that are not Google Wallet that you can use NFC for, it seems absolutely absurd that activating this hardware would be seen as such a threat for ISIS.